Comcast announced it will carry two new Hispanic American-owned independent networks, Primo TV and Kids Central, on its cable systems starting in January 2017.
“Kids Central and Primo TV’s unique focus on young bicultural Hispanics fill an unmet need in youth-oriented programming and further demonstrate our commitment to providing the best experience for bicultural Hispanic families,” said Javier Garcia, senior vice president and general manager of Multicultural Services at Comcast Cable, in a statement. “We believe that these networks will provide high-quality educational and entertaining content while infusing Latino culture into the experience.”
Both Kids Central and Primo TV are English-language educational networks and have programming geared toward viewers in the 3-7 and 6-16 age groups, respectively.
Comcast said it chose Kids Central and Primo TV after receiving dozens of proposals from prospective networks.
Comcast building its network portfolio to include offerings geared toward the Hispanic population comes years after the MVPD’s acquisition of NBCUniversal, a deal that carried various approval conditions including a mandate to promote diversity and inclusion.
Interestingly, the carriage announcement comes not long after Comcast won an FCC ruling against Liberman Broadcasting, a Hispanic programmer that operates networks including Estrella. Liberman had accused Comcast of favoring its own Spanish-language networks, Telemundo and NBC Universo.